Route reliability record
CHS→ORD
Charleston to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,153
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 760 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,153 CHS to ORD flights, of which Envoy Air flew 495 at 78.7% on time.
Best time to fly CHS to ORD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Thursday flights 82.4%, against 76.7% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.7% on time across 495 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,081 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
78.7% on time across 495 flights
These figures cover 2,153 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CHS to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 78.7% of the time; Republic Airways manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 432 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 352 | 84.2% | 109 min | 1.42% | B |
| Envoy Air | 495 | 78.7% | 72 min | 2.83% | B |
| United Airlines | 788 | 75.8% | 73 min | 1.65% | B |
| Republic Airways | 432 | 71.5% | 53 min | 3.24% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 85 | 69.1% | 124 min | 4.71% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 3.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charleston to Chicago
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CHS → ORDCharleston to Chicago | Envoy Air | 76.5% | 78.7% | 2.83% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. CHS → ORDCharleston to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.5% | 75.8% | 1.65% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 3. CHS → ORDCharleston to Chicago | Republic Airways | 69.2% | 71.5% | 3.24% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am502 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am186 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm703 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm266 flights63.5%
- 5pm–8pm387 flights61.5%
- 8pm–5am109 flights64.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 87.6% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 703 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CHS to ORD by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On CHS to ORD, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.5%, a wide gap of 26.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am87.6%
- 11am–2pm82.0%
- 2–5pm63.5%
- 5–8pm61.5%
- 8pm–5am64.0%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,153 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
October is the best month on the calendar at 82.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 209 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.5%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 45% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 16,000 minutes out of 36,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 36,138 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.02%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 760 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 75.0% on time across 2,154 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,153 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 61.5% on time against 87.6% for the 8am–11am slot, and that 26 points is the largest single thing you control here. Envoy Air is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,081 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CHS to ORD questions
How often is CHS to ORD delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.3% of the 2,153 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CHS to ORD?
Envoy Air leads at 78.7% on time across 495 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 71.5%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CHS to ORD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.5%, 26 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on CHS to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 82.4% in October. Across the year that is 12 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to CHS — the return legseparate record
- Charleston International (CHS) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CHS to ORD84.2%
- Envoy Air on CHS to ORD78.7%
- United Airlines on CHS to ORD75.8%
- Republic Airways on CHS to ORD71.5%
- CHS to ATL, a related route88.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- CHS to CLT, a related route82.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record84.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. CHS to ORD and ORD to CHS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CHS to ORD’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.